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A remarkably large number of pundits and public health professionals have focused their angst on sugar-sweetened sodas. The proposals range from soda taxes, bans on large soda sizes, removals of soda machines from schools, to prohibitions against purchases of sodas with food stamps, to vilifying Beyonce for starring in Pepsi commercials (apparently she is no longer up to snuff to sing the National Anthem at Obama's re-inauguration). It's hard to know how much traction these proposals will ultimately gain, but there does seem to be some concerted effort focused on this issue at present. (I previously blogged about one of the biggest anti-sugar activists here).

According to this bit on the Fox News Channel, it appears Coca-Cola is (sort of) fighting back. From the small snippet available in the preview on Fox, it appears their main defense goes something like this: almost all foods, including Coke, have calories; yes, we want folks to lose weight but why single out calories from Coke? Oh, and we're also developing non-calorie sweeteners.

I somehow doubt this response will alleviate the angst those who abhor Big Food. Whether it is convincing to the average consumer is a different question. Will Coca-Cola's response have any impact? Hard to say . . .